What Are You Unwilling To Do?

What defines us may not be what we do, but rather what we don't.

You can tell a lot about a person by what they allow themselves to ignore.

Morgan Housel

There are countless ways to measure who we are. We can consider our own opinions, we can examine how we spend our time, or we can use the opinions of others.

All of these will tell us something about ourselves, but what really defines us is what we are unwilling to do.

We all do a lot in our lives, some of it is important to us and some of it is not, but the things we don’t do reveal much more about us than the things we do.

Lines in the Sand

There is inherent expectation in our everyday lives to do lots of different things. We’re told to buy new things, travel to new places, and fully embrace and experience life.

All of the social and societal pressure to say yes makes what we say no to even more important.

The lines we draw in the sand are a window into our values. We all say yes to a lot, but what we say no to is really what defines who we are.

Saying no and setting boundaries is a lot harder than saying yes. When we do go through the discomfort and inconvenience of saying no and standing our ground, we’re compelled to do it because of core beliefs we’re unwilling to compromise on.

When defining ourselves and thinking about the person we’d like to be, it’s more important for us to focus on the things we won’t do rather than the new and exciting things we will.

The Not To-Do List

Often when we’re thinking about becoming better we’re thinking about all of the things we want to do, but our time may be better spent considering all the things we are unwilling to do.

In addition to setting goals and trying new things, we should create a Not To-Do list that reminds us of the things that we don’t want to do.

With a clear picture of all of the things we’re unwilling to do, we can better understand who we are and what is really important to us. All of the lines we draw in the sand create a map of our values that we can use to navigate the world.

As everything becomes increasingly performative and saying yes is easier than ever, having a strong understanding of what we’re unwilling to do is one of the most important things we can do to improve our day-to-day lives.

We may be judged by the things we do, but we are defined by the things we don’t.

Prompts

1. What are you unwilling to do?

2. What’s on your not to-do list?

3. What is something you’ve done recently that you should have said no to?

Deep Dive

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga

  • Defining life by inner values rather than external validation.

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Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.

Kevin